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Unmanned aircraft have become as much about bringing the news as they are about making the news. Drones have delivered video of intense fighting during the Iraqi offensive against Islamic State group militants in Mosul, and CNN has its first newsgathering unit using small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
Drones modified into flying improvised explosive devices by terrorists have been found by Iraqi forces. The U.S. is urgently fielding countermeasures to the threat posed by consumer ...

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A major round of automation is underway. This is not something which may be stopped; yet it shall have consequences beyond improving the bottom line.

There are about 2,500-3,000 crop dusters in the USA. They are about to be automated out of business as fast as the capital is available to replace them.

Individual owner-operator? The Everything Everywhere Corporation will be happy to under bid you as it will have access to massive capital that you and hundreds of others don’t. It’s called economy of scale.

Has not Autonomous Tractors and Harvesting already sent many farmer Browns to the used human lot?

"The list of civil UAS applications keeps growing and many—such as aerial photography, surveying and wildfire monitoring—have traditionally been performed by manned aircraft. Using drones is a cheaper alternative. Other uses are reducing the risk to the people involved, such as bridge, dam and chimney inspections. Still others are bringing added value, such as real estate photography and deliveries made by drone. Unmanned aircraft are also bringing new capabilities to disaster response and civil security."
- AW&ST

All flying jobs which current technology may replace as fast as tax cuts free the capital to buy replacement equipment.

What am I typing about? Check the progression of the Aviation Week articles below out.

Any job which is repetitive and involves a degree of judgement which may be reduced to an algorithm had better study up on the unemployment bureaucracies and laws in their state (and those bureaucrats had better think about how easy it will be to reduce their job to an algorithm).

We may look back to the past and see how industrialization replaced hand crafting in the 19th century, how agriculture was automated over the 20th century, and how those changes changed society.

Then think for a moment that computers are now writing hit songs and poetry, even news stories - yes, those jobs may be done cheaper by an algorithm.

Engineers? Yes there is some security, but what happened to all those draftsmen and tracers of yore? How much of your work involves truly creative work and how much might be done by algorithms overseen by a single engineer?

How many engineers and machinists were replaced by CAD/CAM?

Artificial intelligence has been under serious development for forty years. Advanced software coupled with improvements in computer hardware has finally matured enough to arrive at a job near yours.

Artificial intelligence will mean big changes in the aerospace industry over the next few decades.

Executives might be able to arrange nice golden parachutes; but for many, even most, your parachute will be a pink slip.

Hold it above you as you descend. . . Lets see, the drag coefficient of a flat plate (pink slip) = 1.28, and the area of the pink slip is perhaps 6 square inches and the terminal velocity of a human body is . . . never mind you are going to hit hard.

No one seems to be thinking the slightest about how American society will be affected by, or cope with, the massive unemployment of middle class, even upper middle class, individuals that will happen as fast as capital may be applied to replacing expensive humans with cheap automation.

Humanity has been experiencing automation for over 200 years and in the long run automation always wins. When was the last time you saw a farmer behind a mule plowing a field? It was 1957 for me, and then it was so singular that the memory remains.

Don't practice saying "do you want fries with that"? There are two reasons. First the technology is rapidly evolving where a robot will ask the question while it charges your credit card as you tap your smartphone towards it out the window of your self-driving car. Second, once there are enough homeless Americans; who will be able to afford the fries?

Too bad that there is no one thinking about the inevitable consequences of automation soon to come. Or how America will cope with the changes.